


Woes of the modern prophet

by Trojie



Series: Fics for SPNVerse Challenges [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bible, Episode: s04e18 The Monster at the End of This Book, Gen, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the truth is too ridiculous for anyone to believe it. Also, Vonnegut was a douchebag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woes of the modern prophet

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Spn_verse Challenge 20. I was assigned the characters Castiel and Chuck Shurley.

Chuck still sometimes worries, deep in the back of his head, that he really did create Dean and Sam, and that having created them all he's done is torture them. Even having them standing right in front of him hasn't stopped it keeping him awake at nights sometimes. Humans, they're so inherently … inventable. 

Chuck has never once been arrogant enough (and he is pretty arrogant, he can admit it, it's a writer thing) to think he could have thought of Castiel. The whole 'angel' concept wouldn't have been a stretch, it's true - he's been writing about Hell for years now, and bringing Heaven in as a secondary antagonist or a bait-and-switchy ally wouldn't have been that big a leap. The trenchcoat maybe he could have come up with? It does flap like wings. Chuck's not sure if that would have occurred to him cold or if it only seems obvious now he's encountered it. The cold-eyed, almost blank expression while killing, and fanatical obedience to orders, would have been par for the course once he'd decided that angels were soldiers, which he would have done because let's face it, he's writing a war. 

But Castiel - Chuck couldn't have invented Castiel. Or Uriel, or Anna - none of them, really. Castiel terrifies him because he's the perfect example of a frontline soldier. He's an attack dog for Heaven. He terrifies Chuck the same way he suspects Meg would have if he'd ever actually met her, instead of spending hours trying to match the witty dialogue she spouted in his head with extra stuff to spin out important exposition scenes. But at the same time, Castiel has a deep innocence to him, and he's _good_ , he really is, not just in the 'good and evil are words for the different sides' way - he's good in an absolute kind of way, in his intentions and his attitude.

In so many ways, Chuck could not have invented Castiel. 

And now Castiel, who frightens him and is reassuring at the same time, who is utterly and entirely not controlled by Chuck, who can't possibly be a hallucination or a figment of his imagination, who is _not Chuck's fault_ , is standing in the middle of Chuck's dining room (which he prefers to call his study), reading badly-bound paperbacks with musclebound idiots on the front covers, and nodding and smiling at passages. 

'It must please you, that your prophecy is so widely distributed,' Castiel says, no, _remarks_ , looking up briefly from the first edition _Supernatural_ trade paperback in his hands. (All _Supernatural_ books are first editions. None of them has ever been picked up for a second run.)

'Not that widely distributed,' Chuck huffs, peering blearily at his computer screen and wondering if he's supposed to write down the things that actually physically occur to him - if they're part of the Word of God he's supposed to transcribe. They're part of the continuity, though. It would be weird to leave them out, wouldn't it? He'd get big blank spots in the narrative. People would want to know what Castiel was doing when he wasn't with the Winchesters, right? 

On the other hand, that kind of thing does give an air of mystery, which helps keep reader interest. Leaves room for speculation. And Chuck can come back and fill it in later with flashbacks if he needs to. Also it's unbelievably assholish to actually write yourself into your own novels. Vonnegut was a douchebag, Chuck's decided.

Also no-one will believe things like this. Demons, they loved the demons. Salt, ghosts, iron, holy water, wendigos, brothers who haven't strangled each other after five years living out of the same car together, the freaking Apocalypse … people lap all that shit up. Angels who visit your house and read your trashy fiction and compare it to the Book of Revelations? There's suspending disbelief and then there's hanging it out the windows on the thirty-seventh floor. And dropping it.

Castiel's still staring like he thinks Chuck hasn't answered him. 'I mean, nobody reads my books, man,' Chuck tries again. 'It's not even a "cult following". It's a couple people in tinfoil hats on the internet."

Castiel blinks at him. 'St John of Patmos wrote one singular copy of Revelations, upon the tanned hide of a nanny-goat,' he says owlishly. 'And it wasn't particularly well-tanned either. And now a version of his work rests on almost every bookshelf in the country.'

'… My publisher distributes to twenty comic-book stores. And Amazon.' Chuck can't help but add the last bit kind of sarcastically. He's got two reviews on Amazon that aren't written in gushing capslock by people who think Sam Winchester is a healthy choice for a soulmate, and neither of them is that flattering.

Castiel smile gently at him and marks his place in Chuck's author's copy of 'Tall Tales'. 'Yes,' he says. 'Just think about what might have happened if St John of Patmos had had your publisher.'


End file.
